ABSTRACT
Building community capacity and power is a goal of community organizing and it has been successfully used to leverage approaches of school reform that respond to community needs. E. Gold et al. view building community capacity and power through grassroots leadership development as creating a form of public accountability for schools and districts. Understanding schools as embedded in community means that building professional capacity within schools also requires building community capacity and relationships beyond the school. The Mexican-American Studies program represents a form of student empowerment that does not rely on paternalistic, boot camp models that teach students obedience and provide a test-driven education. Popular business notions like statistical control of product quality, continuous improvement, quality circles, and teaming helped to legitimate inquiry teams and data warehousing in schools and other technologies that many would claim were inappropriate to the purposes of education.
